Last week, Pope Francis received a collection of world religious leaders in his first ecumenical and interreligious event. His address to them contained diplomatic niceties and specific expressions of good will aimed at Orthodox, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims.

His remarks to the latter recognized that Muslims “worship the one living...

For at least a couple of decades, there has been a trend going around Catholic circles to "explore our Jewish roots." If this exploration was limited to interfaith dialogues between Jewish and Catholic theologians, or even to friendly discussions between Jews and Catholics, there wouldn't be a problem. Dialogues and discussions can be helpful, even praiseworthy. The trouble starts when lay Catholics decide to "try out" Jewish ritual.

How should one respond to the old schoolboy retort, “If everything needs a cause, who caused God?”

First, philosophers and theologians do not maintain that whatever exists needs a cause. Instead, they propose that certain things need causes, such as things that have a beginning or things that don’t have to exist.

If something came into existence at a certain point in time—that is, if it had a beginning—then there needs to be a cause, an explanation, for why it came to be. But...

On a recent CNN iReport, a user named TXBlue08 provides seven reasons why she chooses to raise her children without belief in God. In the past two weeks her essay has been viewed 750,000 times. I suspect this essay is becoming less a mere defense of godless parenting and more a straight-up atheistic evangelization effort. Let's examine her seven reasons to "let God go" and see if the deconversions should commence.

I was recently asked to name the most common argument made by atheists today. I have to say, the atheists I’m in dialog with tend not to make arguments for atheism. Rather, they appear preoccupied with redefining their terms, maintaining that atheism is not a claim to knowledge but merely a suspension of belief.

This is incorrect. The way the term atheist is normally used, it refers to a person who...